@McGentrix,
McGentrix wrote:
No, I don't believe Obama is a failure ONLY because he has failed to provide the private sector jobs he promised.
Specifically, did he promise to have fully replaced all jobs that were lost a year before he was put into the leadership role? If not, I have no idea how you are making this claim.
Quote: It goes far deeper than that. Neither I, nor Ferguson have used that as a sole reason so I wonder why you think that. It's a culmination of ALL his failures that make the Obama presidency a failure. If Obama couldn't keep his promises, he shouldn't have made them.
Many of the campaign promises Obama made occurred prior to the market's meltdown in October of 2008. Nobody - nobody - knew how bad the economy was going to get. It's no surprise at all that the landscape had significantly shifted by the time he took office, and he was unable to go through with many of the plans he had initially talked about.
Quote:Keep blaming everyone but Obama though. Obviously everything the executive branch does is being held up by those darned republicans! That only gets you so far cyc. Eventually, as they say, the buck stops at the Presidents desk.
The buck ALWAYS stops at the president's desk. That's a big difference between you and I, McG - I've always believed this. Obama said long ago that he owns the economy and you can judge him based upon it. He made several errors in his first year of office, the biggest of which being his hiring of Timothy Geithner and Summers as his economic policy team, closely followed by his decision to re-nominate Bernake. He should be held responsible for the fact that he - on his team's advice - took actions to shore up the financial sector and the wealthy, at the expense of everyone else.
However, that doesn't mean that we should ignore reality, and the role that the other side played in shaping our current situation. ALL presidents in the past, when responding to recessions, have increased government spending to respond to them. The GOP has done its best to keep Obama from doing this, and you can see the results today.
Quote:I wonder if YOU read the article, or just skimmed through the rebuttals. Did you get that version of Newsweek and read through it thoroughly?
I read the entire article and reams of analysis before any discussion here began. It was widely discussed on the left side of the fence, for an entire week.
You don't have to read things instantly, you should simply have read them and understand the strengths and weaknesses of a piece before attempting to use it to back up a point you are making.
Quote:Sounds to me like you are backing out of the conversation here. If you are, just go ahead and plainly say so instead of trying to make out to be some kind of sophisticate who can't be bothered by such mendacity.
The mendacity I refer to is in the quality of the criticisms that you and Ferguson are leveling against Obama. You have created an impossible demand upon the man and then damned him for not living up to that impossibility. You ignore or wave away all factors that disprove or challenge your argument.
If you don't think that's true, maybe you can address the question of how Obama was supposed take action, that would lead the economy to add enough jobs on a monthly basis to make up for all the lost jobs? What would you suggested he would have done differently, that would have produced results never before seen in American history? I have yet to hear you or anyone else address this question in any depth.
Cycloptichorn
